Jazz Night In America

Saturdays at 8:00 p.m.

Hosted by
Christian McBride

NPR Music, Member Station WBGO, and Jazz at Lincoln Center unite to create the next generation of jazz programming from public radio.

Hosted by multiple Grammy Award-winning musician Christian McBride, Jazz Night in America presents content on multiple platforms and from across the nation to share this uniquely American art form and reinvigorate public media jazz programming for audiences today. The program features storytelling with concert performances, connecting jazz enthusiasts and potential new fans with artists and venues -- and each other -- through weekly, one-hour broadcasts and an array of 26 live signature videocasts and on-demand video of jazz events from today's great artists and venues. It brings jazz fans together online via chat rooms during concerts and through social media, encouraging a deeper conversation with musicians, representatives of arts organizations and the major institutions of the jazz world, and arts educators in their community.

Host and acclaimed jazz bassist Christian McBride

Credit Anna Webber

About host Christian McBride:

Bassist extraordinaire, composer, arranger, educator, curator and administrator, Christian McBride, has been one of the most important and most omnipresent figures in the jazz world for 20 years. Sometimes hard to believe considering this man is just 41. Beginning in 1989, this Philadelphia-born bassist moved to New York City to further his classical studies at the Juilliard School, only to be snatched up by alto saxophonist, Bobby Watson.

Since then, McBride's list of accomplishments have been nothing short of staggering. As a sideman in the jazz world alone, he's worked with the best of the very best - Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins, J.J. Johnson, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson, McCoy Tyner, Roy Haynes, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny. In the R&B world, he's not only played with, but also arranged for Isaac Hayes, Chaka Khan, Natalie Cole, Lalah Hathaway, and the one and only Godfather of Soul himself, James Brown. In the pop/rock world, he's extensively collaborated with Sting, Carly Simon, Don Henley, and Bruce Hornsby. In the hip-hop/neo-soul world, he's collaborated with the Roots, D'Angelo, and Queen Latifah. In many other specialty projects, he's worked closely with opera legend Kathleen Battle, bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer, the Shanghai Quartet and the Sonus Quartet.